Korean Job Discussion Forums

[fromtheuk]

We did the CD ROM role play called ' Fashion show' in the first Grade 6 class this morning for the lesson: 'Where are you from?'

It's like a miss world contest, with 3 contestants, from Korea, the U.S.A. and Uganda.

When Miss Uganda came on screen, a few children laughed out loud, in a demeaning way. It was pretty ignorant and nasty.

I'm interested to see if the other 2 classes react the same way.

[inthezone]

I had a similar experience last week. A student asked me "Teacher who invented English?", intelligent question i thought. He was looking for an individuals name like the man who invented hangul.

"I don't know I said, English people probably" student B pops up and says "handicapped people" I was fuming.

Do many people encounter this kind of thing in an average work week?

[Yu_Bum_suk]

Did Miss Uganda have a bone through her nose?

It is gradually changing but dark skin is simply something that many Koreans see as unattractive, and so the idea of her being in a beauty contest might seem ridiculous to 11-12-year-olds.

[Yu_Bum_suk]

[Fofazoju]

UGH, I have been meaning to post a RANT on this....thanks fore the reminder

The other day I was teaching my advanced class (and I use that term loosely), and I was going to teach them physical descriptions of people. I printed out about 10 pics (sadly, avoiding black people because I showed a pic of Oprah one time and heard "MONKEY MONKEY" which PI$$ED me off to NO end and I just did not want to be in a bad mood that day...but anyway...)

So I have about 10 pics up of PRETTY people by any other standards (they were all models). Blondes, curly hair red heads etc. I KINDA thought "hmm ok, are they gonna be annoying and be like 'oh teacher monster!'" with the curly haired kids but I decided to give them some credit.

BOY WAS I WRONG. They were saying ALL the people were ugly (even one of some blonde actress, I think it's Hilary Duff, which they said looked like me But then come to find out they thought she was scary looking so not sure if that was a compliment haha).

So then I asked them "Ok, which one is pretty?" They point to the ONE KOREAN I had up there. At this point I felt like I was teaching Hitler's kids or something. I mean this is not 1940. Not to mention my vice principal calls black people monkeys also.

ARRRRRRRRRRRRRG How many more days do I have?? :

[Easter Clark]

^

Yeah, I'm always surprised what my students find attractive. I recently had a photo of the Backstreet Boys on the OHP and they thought every one of them was "ugly." But when I showed them a movie clip of "Penelope," they were swooning over James McAvoy (aka Mr. Tumnus):



I guess even the Backstreet Boys weren't feminine enough for these kids!

[DongtanTony]

Race is a topic I avoid like the plague...

But...coming from the perspective of a middle school social sciences teacher in the states, dealing with the race issue here is very similar to how I approach matters of religion in the classroom back home...I don't.

Use jola man (zola...however you may spell it) for body lessons next time.

[TexasPete]

[TexasPete]

[ceesgetdegrees]

[mehamrick]

[CentralCali]

[inthezone]

[ceesgetdegrees]

[nomad-ish]